A glimmer of Goldilocks + a drop of Icarus + a murmur of nostalgic lullabies =the closing of one storybook and the start of ever after…

Something tickled at the farthest edge of Lute’s awareness – the tiniest snatch of a sound, or a song, or a thought. There was a restlessness in the air. An urgency. The sky, he heard, or felt, or thought. Escape.Lute straightened with swiftly strengthened purpose. Soon was not soon enough. It felt of a sudden that he was running out of time.“Allyn,” he called.The reply came at once. “Yes, Father?”“Up,” he said, leaping from the tree. “We’re going.”Rising on the instant, Allyn asked, “Going where?”Lute huffed in exasperation. Hadn’t he just told him so? Up! But a grudging sense of realism stalled his sharp reply. If wishes were wings, you’d not find him on the ground. Though renewed determination to reach the sky was a starting point, he hadn’t the first idea where to go on from there.“Down,” he said reluctantly. Decided on instinct, “West.”If he aimed to follow the refrain of his heart, he could do worse than to start by following the kindred song of the western breeze.

For Gant-o’-the-Lute, “ever after” has been less than happy.With the last of Carillon’s charm over him gone, theminstrel-king puts royalty behind him in pursuit ofthe music he once knew and the lifelong dream he let slip through his fingers. But dark whispers on the wind warn thattime is running out – not only for Lute and the apprentice in his shadow, but the whole of earth and Sky.

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An enchantress’s curse turns a spoiled royal into a beast; a princess’s pricked finger places her under a hundred-year spell; bales of straw are spun as golden as the singing harp whisked down a giant beanstalk – all within sight of Wilderhark, the forest that’s seen it all.

You’ve heard the stories – of young men scaling rope-like braids to assist the tower-bound damsel; of gorgeous gowns appearing just in time for a midnight ball; of frog princes, and swan princes, and princes saved from drowning by maidens of the sea.

Tales of magic. Tales of adventure. Most of all, tales of true love.

Once upon a time, you knew them as fairytales. Know them now as Wilderhark’s.

The Story's End (Book Seven of The Wilderhark Tales)

"No heart is safe within these pages—least of all the reader's." – Tirzah Duncan, author of Cry of the Nightbird